A DIVER’S ADVENTURES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 214, 16 October 1875, Page 22

A DIVER’S ADVENTURES.

A correspondent who has interviewed Captain Boyton sends a report of the Captain’s statements to the Gentleman's Magazine: —“Soon afterward I worked down into the Gulf of Mexico. The first coral I raised was at Catoehe. Knocking round about there, I heard of the loss of the schooner Foam. The first mate and three men got saved, but the captain, his daughter, and three men got lost. I slung round to see if she could be raised. After we’d spent the best part of a week, we sailed over and dropped anchor. It was a lovely Sunday morning when we struck her. She lay in sixty feet of water, on a bottom as white as the moon. Looking down I could see her leaning over on one side upon the coral reef. When I got down to her I saw she’d torn a great gap in the reef when she ran against it. The mainmast was gone, and hung by the fore. I clambered; I saw whole shoals of fish playing in and out of the hatches. First I went to look for the bodies, for I never like to work while there’s any of them about. Finding the f o’castle empty, I went to the two little state cabins. It was rather dark, and I had to feel in the lower bunks. There was nothing in, the first, and in the other the door was locked. I pried it open and shot back the lock with my adze. It flew open, and out something fell right against me. I felt at once it was the woman’s body. I was not exactly frightened, but it shook me rather. I slung it from me, and went out into the light a bit until I got hold of myself. Then I turned back and brought her out—floor thing, she’d been very pretty, and as I carried her in my arms with her white face nestling against my shoulder, she seemed as if she was only sleeping. I made her fast to the line, as carefully as I could, to send her up, and the fish played about her as if they were sorry she was going. At last I gave the signal and she went slowly up, her hair floating round her head like a

pillow of golden seaweed. That was the only body I found there, and I managed after to raise considerable of the cargo. t Only one of my expeditions was among the Bilver banks of the Antilles—the loveliest place I ever saw, where the white coral grows into curious tree-like shapes. As I stepped along the bottom it seemed as if it was a frosted forest. Here and there trailed long fronds of green and crimson sea-weed. Silverbellied fish flashed about among the deep brown and purple sea ferns, which rose as high as my head. As far as I could see all around in the transparent waters were different colored leaves, and on the floor piles of shells so bright in color that it seemed as if I had stumbled on a place where they kept a stock of broken rainbows. I could not work for a bit, and had a quarter determination to sit down for a while and wait for the mermaid. I guess if those seagirls live anywhere, they select this spot. After walking the inside out of half an hour, I thought I had better go to work and blast for treasure. A little bit on from where I sat were the remains of a treasure ship. It was a Britisher, I think, and corals had formed all about her, or rather about what was left of her. The coral on the bottom and round her showed black spots. That meant a deposit of either iron or silver. I made fairly good hauls every time I went down, and sold one piece that I had to Mr. Barnum of New York. After I left there I had a curious adventure with a shark. I was down on a nasty rock bottom. A man never feels comfortable on them ; he can’t tell what big creature may be hiding under the huge quarter-deck sea leaves which grow there. The first part of the time I was visited by a porcupine fish, which kept sticking its quills up and bobbing in front of my helmet. Soon after I saw a big shadow fall across me, and looking up there was an infernal shark playing about my tubing. It makes you feel chilly in the back when they’re .about. He came to me slick as I looked up. I made at him and he sheered off. For near an hour he worked at it, till I could stand it no longer’. If you can keep your head level its all right, and you are pretty safe if they are not ou you sharp. This ugly brute was twenty feet long I should think, for when I lay down all my length on the bottom he stretched a considerable way ahead of me, and I could see him beyond my feet. Then I waited. They must turn over to bite, and my laying down bothered him. He swam over me three or four times, and then skulked off to a thicket of seaweed to consider. I knew he’d come back when he'd settled his mind. It seemed a long time waiting for him. At last ho came viciously over me, but, like the time before, too far from my arms. The next time I had my chance, and ripped him with my knife as neatly as I could. A shark always remembers he’s got business somewhere else when lie’s cut, so off this fellow goes. It is a curious thing, too, that all the sharks about will follow in the blood trail ho leaves. I got on my hands and knees, and as he swam off I noticed four dark shadows slip after him. I saw no more that time. They did not like my company.

After a short period of experience in pearldiving, the next is the loss of nearly everything that he possessed, including his diving apparatus, in a conflagration. Captain Boyton, in a sort of desperation, took service in the Mexican war, and led an exciting life till, growing tired of the semi-barbarian "mode of warfare, he deserted, crossing from Matamoras at midnight in an old tub of a boat, in which he expected every minute to go to the bottom. Arriving at Brownsville, he “ fixed himself into hard work” at a dry goods store. Then he wrote home, and hearing that his father was dead, grew restless again, and “waded away north,” through Victoria, San Antonia, Indianaolia, and by a schooner from Galveston, whence he proceeded via New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington to New York. There he stayed until he had filled his pockets again, and having set himself up with a diving suit, he shipped for Havre.